I was going to start off with a screed about how awful American Idol has become, but I think we all realize that this show is just a shell of its former self, so there’s no need for a long winded diatribe. It’s a soul sucking waste of time now, and the only reason I’m watching it is to find out how it ends. It’s like realizing the book you’re reading actually sucks, but there are only a couple of chapters left so you might as well just finish the damn thing. American Idol is the literary equivalent to Dan Brown’s
Angels & Demons. Sorry, that should read “literary” equivalent. The movie is undoubtedly going to be a shit bomb.
ffice
ffice" />
The only bright spot in the evening was that the song selection was the best since Beatles night, and although most of the performances were so-so to disastrous, at least I didn’t vomit in my mouth a little like I did during Mariah Carey week. Also, while the songs may be old, they’re timeless. It’s helps that there aren’t senior citizen “mentors” on stage reminding you just how old these songs are.
Judging by the fact that she can’t discern the middle of the show from the end of the show, Paula’s personal motto must be, “I drink, therefore I am”. I assume that’s why
her hair was a tribute to Rene Descartes. Now, I don’t know what she was doing to Randy
under the judges table, but Simon seemed to get a kick out of it. And did anyone else catch Ryan
dissing one of the Rascal Flatts guys who was looking for a handshake? I guess if you’re not the chubby lead singer, you’re nobody.
David – There was definitely something wrong with the audio mix in the first half of the evening, and instead of the usual “band overpowering the singers”, we got a band that could barely be heard (David practically sang an a cappella version). This was not good for David, he relies on loud instrumentation and excessive growling to cover up the deficiencies in his voice. As a result,
Hungry Like the Wolf was extra growly, and you could hear the lack of tone, lack of range, and a lot of off-key notes (the do-do-do’s were especially bad). The real question is,
why the hell did he pick a Duran Duran song? David combed out the bedhead from last week and went back to his usual
orangutan combover. I could probably create an entire montage of David and orangutans.
Something like this (N.B. I did not create the collage, I just found it on the net).
Syesha – Wearing a
disco ball for a dress, Syesha tread over very well worn ground and sang the 1 millionth version of Proud Mary for her first song. The thing is, I’ve heard versions during Idol Auditions that sounded better. It’s just amateurish dreck complete with embarrassing choreography, screechy off notes, and boring vocals. To make matters worse, Syesha is quite an unfunky dancer, moving around the stage more like Ted Turner than Tina Turner. Syesha has got to learn to
shave her underarms a bit closer if she wants to lift her arms up in a dress like that. The tranny pits were a big turn off – if she wants to do it right, she should hook up with RuPaul for tips on handling that 5 o’clock shadow. Right now, they’re a hot tranny mess. And the dress was really cheap looking – it wasn’t even beads or spangles like Kristy Lee’s shiny outfits –this was just
dollar store sequins. Forget Broadway – I see cruise ships in Syesha’s future.
Jason – That was just the weirdest, crappiest, most embarrassing sounding version of
I Shot the Sheriff I’ve ever heard. It was so huffy and breathy with such belabored singing that – how should I say this? It… well… sounded like he was
pleasuring himself as he was singing. It was like some obscene phone call Bob Marley once made after he was stoned out of his mind. He struggled so hard to hit the notes that it made me uncomfortable listening to him. It’s one thing to ruin
Memory – that’s just dross. But this is an absolute classic, and trampling on it that in a public forum like this is like an insult. Jason should be aware that Bob Marley’s son Rohan was a linebacker at the University of Miami and played in the CFL. Getting hit by Rohan
might hurt a bit.
Porkchop – The first half of
Stand By Me was pretty boring, and David (or more likely his dad) seems to change up the arrangements by shifting around the melody and throwing in melismatic runs to the point of being unrecognizable. The arrangement in the second half was a bit more interesting to listen to, but it was, on the whole, quite forgettable. David appeared to have chickened out on the last falsetto note and replaced it with an off-key warble. It was, however, the best song of the first group, there were some very nice soulful sections that almost made it worthwhile. Ryan should stop grabbing and tugging on David or the
compromising positions will result in a sit down with
Chris Hansen. It reminded me of the time Ryan started undressing young Will Malakar on stage in season 5.
David – In a surprising twist, David took a song and made it really slow and monotone. What a shocker, I didn’t see that coming. The entire song hinged around the one high note David was able to hit, which was also the note he couldn’t hit a few notes later. Otherwise, it was the same old mush-mouthed one-note performance that ended with an endlessly sung loop of “teenage wasteland” (which, by the way, isn’t the song title – it’s Baba O’Reilly, and yes, I know that’s the way it is in the original version, only Roger Daltry didn’t sing it so slowly). And then it just stopped abruptly. In my mind, he shouldn’t have picked this song, as it would have to have been wildly truncated, and it’s unsatisfying and incomplete without the musical intro, which is one of the greatest build-ups in rock and roll history. If this Idol thing doesn’t work out, David may be able to get a job as a
golf course groundskeeper.
Syesha – Before I found out that the contestants were going to change their outfits between numbers, I assumed that Syesha’s disco ball outfit meant that she had given up trying to win this thing and put her cleavage away. Not so fast! With cleavage verging on spillage, Syesha appears to have raided Katharine McPhee’s AI closet for the
peach number that may have been more appropriately
melon colored. Syesha started out strong (I absolutely love the opening of
A Change Is Gonna Come), but the thing is, the actual melody is very delicate. By breaking the song up into random long notes and changing up phrasing, Syesha completely lost the melody, and Randy was absolutely correct that she did a great disservice to the song by trying to turn it into a screechfest. I did finally realize something about Syesha tonight – when she hit her last combination of big notes, I sat wondering why I was so unmoved and unimpressed. It dawned on me that Syesha sings those big notes more in her head than from her diaphragm, and instead of powerful notes, they’re shrieky and insubstantial. The notes never really soar because they just don’t have enough lift behind them. Instead, she sounds like a European police siren. Syesha ended her evening with an interminable Academy Award speech (they should have cued the band to get her off the stage) and she was the biggest crying mess since
Ramiele said goodbye to Danny Noriega. Syesha was blubbering so hard that her makeup starting running, and I’m not sure which was the skin tone and which was the foundation, but the patchiness made it look like she had
vitiligo. My wife’s favorite moment was when Syesha said, “I probably look like crap right now”, and Ryan immediately responded, “Yeah”. Incidentally, the speech and the crying jag were the last straw. I can’t stand this mugging drama queen anymore. I'd rather see Jason back next week than sit through another one of these beauty pageant performances.
Jason – Had he
not forgotten the words to
Mr. Tambourine Man, it would have been a coffeeshop kind of performance, the kind you may or may not pay any mind to because it’s not the kind of thing that demands your attention. But he skipped an entire verse, and it’s difficult for the audience to get back into the song when that happena, especially when it's so near the beginning. Jason admitted in an article that he’s the weakest singer left and that he’s “kinda ready to go home”. He will probably be granted that wish this week. One last
bong hit for the road.
Porkchop – David pulled out an Eva Cassidy-esque version of
Love Me Tender, and it totally worked. Perhaps not the best he’s sounded technically, but he got back some of that soulfulness and emotional connection that we hadn’t witnessed in weeks. David can project the kind of real emotion in his singing that is
alien to Syesha, and if this was some sort of planned rope-a-dope to lull David Cook into complacency before a shift in momentum going into the finals, Porkchop’s new motto may just be, “
What, Me Worry?”
